I
consider myself a big failure in the potty training
department so don�t even ask me about it. Perhaps waiting until they are about five would
work! ............. Oh okay, if I must say something
about the subject...........

There are at least 2 schools of thought regarding
potty training. The first extreme says to train your
children early (age one to two) by constantly taking
them to the potty yourself. Some people would say that
this is really training the parent, not the child, and I
tend to agree.

The
second school of thought says to wait, wait, wait, until
your child initiates the task by asking to be trained or
even training himself. That never happened once in my
house. They really didn't care if they were ever
trained. Maybe if I'd waited until they were
ten....

The
middle of the road people often wait until the child
asks to be trained, then put them in training pants and
remind them a lot, and then put up with months of
accidents until they finally begin consistently using
the potty on their own. Once again, I don't think
I fit in either box or anywhere much in the middle
either. Here's the way I feel about the matter:

First of all, I hate cleaning up accidents. I guess I
don't see the point of cleaning up clothes and training
pants when they could be messing in the potty or at
least in a diaper. While it makes sense to me to wait
until a child is physically and mentally ready to be
trained, I don't see why you should wait until THEY
initiate the process. You don't wait for them to decide
on their own to brush their teeth, or to make their
beds, or to wash their hands before eating, or to learn
to read, or a multitude of other things, so why potty
training? I can't think of a good reason.

Next, I do think you should wait until the child is old
enough to follow instructions and to control his
bladder, etc. If he is staying dry all night he is
probably physically ready. After that it becomes a
matter of education. Teaching him not to fear the potty.
Teaching him how to get on and off. Teaching him how to
relax and go. Teach him come and tell mom so she can
help if needed. Teaching him to wipe and flush and so
on. So if it is simply a matter of education, I don't
see why it should take weeks or months of repeated
accidents before they are potty trained. I know they are
smart enough to learn these things very quickly, so
that's not the problem. So if they understand what to do
and how to do it, and still aren't doing it, then it
becomes a training issue.....right? Seems logical
to me.

Here, briefly
are some of my experiences with potty training. I am
always open to new ideas in this area, but so far I
really haven't heard of much else that works better or
faster than what I have already done.

My experiences with potty training:

Our firstborn, was staying dry all night from the
time he was 12 months old, with no effort on my part.
He potty trained very easily in two days, just
after he turned two. I bought the book "Toilet
Training in Less than a Day" and used the general
principles in the book, and he almost never had an
accident after that first day or two. The basic idea
conveyed in the book is to 1. Get them used to sitting
on the potty before you start, 2. Eliminate all other
distractions and devote an entire day or two to potty
training, taking them to the potty every hour or less,
and 3. Reward them with a candy treat when they go. The
book suggests using a doll to demonstrate, but I didn't
do that. I only gave treats the first few times, to help
motivate and get the idea across. I just generous with
verbal praise after that.

Although I tried the same general approach with all
of my other children, most of them did not train as
early as our first. Usually I'd try training them
for a few days or weeks, then if it wasn't working, I'd
put them back in diapers and wait a few more months
before trying again. I just assumed they hadn't been
"ready" the previous time. Most were trained
around age three. If it didn't work without
excessive stress the next time, I'd put it off again.
Eventually it would work. It took a few days of
concentrated work on the matter and a miserable (for me
- they didn't seem to mind) three or four weeks of
occasional accidents after that, but it'd work. With
most of them, I changed from paper diaper to cloth
training pants, near or at the beginning of the
training. I had to "remind" most of them to
use the potty for quite a while even after they were
"trained". It was usually weeks or months
before they routinely began coming and telling me on
their own, without my reminders, that they had to use
the potty.

My
fifth born was the pretty difficult. After numerous
failed attempts with him, I put him back in diapers and
waited until he was almost four. One day I took him
aside, sat him down, looked him in the eye, and told him
clearly and frankly, that he was too old for diapers and
from that day forth, he would be expected to use the
bathroom. I told him there would be no more diapers and
that he would be spanked if he did not �make it.� He
already knew all about how to do it, and had
demonstrated many times that he could do it, but I
reviewed a few things just to make it absolutely clear.
I think he only had one " accident" (if you
want to call laziness an "accident") the first
week, and maybe a total of two or three the entire
following month. I followed through a swat on the
clothed bottom on those few occasions and that was it.
All done with no more laziness problems.

I
anticipated that my sixth born would be the biggest
challenge of all, since he was with everything else.
This was my more impulsive, most active, most difficult
to control child. Therefore, I proceeded with caution
and dread. I went through my usual routine of checking
for readiness, introduced him to the potty, teaching him
what to do and so on. I made several failed attempts at
actual potty training, but I never put him in training
pants. Why set myself and him up for failure and
frustration? Eventually I decided to use the method I
had used on his next older sibling. I said nothing about
the subject for several months - by then he was over 3
� years old. One day when I was positive that he was
ready to be train and knew what to do, I sat him down,
got his attention, then told him what I expected. It was
a very short and firm conversation. I told him he was
not to mess in his diaper, period. He was told he would
be spanked if he did. The next time he had to do a �big�
job, he did it as usual in his diaper. I spanked, firmly
and with conviction. I must have got my point across
because he only had one minor accident after
that. Two weeks later I repeated the same
procedure with the �wetting� part of the deal. I
told him I would be checking his diaper and I was NOT to
find it wet. The first day I had to spank him once or
twice, but only two days later I was able to take his
diaper off permanently! By the way, he does not seem
emotionally scarred for life because of these very few
spankings.

My eighth born was the easiest of all. He had just
turned three, and I had not tried to train him before,
except to do the same things I'd done with all the
others. First I looked for signs of readiness,
especially staying dry all night and for longer
stretches during the day. I let him sit on the big potty
a few times to get used to it so he was not afraid. Off
and on before I started, I told him, as I had the
others, with an encouraging smile, things like:
"Pretty soon you'll be potty trained, won't it be
fun not to wear diapers any more? Then you can use the
big potty just like Mommy and Daddy!"
Finally, the day I decided to try potty training him, I
just had a little talk with him telling him that there
would be no more diapers and that he was a big boy now
and had to use the potty. It wasn't a stern talk like
I'd had with the two who were the most difficult to
train. I did not mention spanking or any punishment. I
didn't mention any rewards or treats for that matter
either. I put training pants on him and took him to the
potty after meals, upon arising, before bed, and once in
a while in between. I left a diaper on him at night for
about a week or two. I didn't do anything special, or
anything different than I had with any of my other
children. No threats, no bribery, no spanking, no
super-duper praise sessions, no letting him run around
bottomless, or anything else unusual. Nevertheless he
only had one accident that first day and never another
after that. He even consistently came and told me
when he had to go potty after that! I don't really get
it. He was just personally motivated I guess. I
don't think it was anything special I did.